


and you know me now like i came from your own body

by CaesarVulpes



Series: we were born to be adored [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Aftercare, Bathing/Washing, M/M, Sort Of, Trans Male Character, Unhappy but hopeful, again sort of?, belated kink negotiation, i lied this is the real one, nebulous season 3 setting, remember when I was like choose your own ending?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:15:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22276192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaesarVulpes/pseuds/CaesarVulpes
Summary: Tim considers, briefly, leaving Jon to the ravages of his drop. But he knows better, even if Jon doesn’t.
Relationships: Jonathan Sims/Tim Stoker
Series: we were born to be adored [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616824
Comments: 22
Kudos: 487





	and you know me now like i came from your own body

* * *

Tim stays there, breathing deliberately deep and slow, for several minutes. Closes his eyes and just lets himself be here, with afterglow settling into his bones and a pretty sub clinging to him.

He can feel when Jon starts to drop. In the tension of his shaking fingers and the way he stiffens, how he presses back against the wall and severs every point of contact. The anxious flick of his eyes up to Tim’s face and back to the floor, never alighting for more than a split second.

"I—” He coughs, his voice hoarse and cracked. Tim distantly thinks he should be proud of that. "I—I’ll go. I’m—I don’t—I won’t bother you again.”

There’s meaning somewhere in there. Tim can see the awful shape of it. He just has to dig to find it.

“I—I shouldn’t have come,” Jon stammers vaguely, wipes his nose on his arm. He tries to stand, pushes himself up the wall and slips on the tile, catches himself on the toilet and hauls himself up again. His wobbly legs can’t seem to hold his weight.

Tim considers letting him go. He could stand back and let Jon fumble through cleanup or just put his clothes back on and go on the tube sticky and smelling of sex. Listen to him stammer his apologies, his excuses, but he already looks ready to cry again, and not in the sexy way.

(Tim wasn’t aware there was a sexy way, and certainly wouldn’t have pegged it as the desperate, snot-soaked affair he’s just seen).

He knows better. Even Jon deserves this basic care, and he can’t imagine he’ll feel like anything less than a monster if he lets him go now. He’s already starting towards it, watching Jon struggle without once asking for a hand that is inches away. 

“Stay.”

Jon loses his grip and drops, and Tim catches him. He’s already wound tight as a bowstring, and he holds perfectly still in Tim’s arms. Frozen, with trembling hands.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, yeah? Get some water in us both, get some rest?”

Jon shakes his head minutely, eyes guilty downcast.

“You don’t have to. I can just leave, you don’t have to put up with me anymore.”

”I do,” Tim says flatly, as Jon starts to wriggle. “This is honestly the bare minimum I usually do.”

He sighs. He’s so fucking tired. Too tired to be angry, so right now he’s sort of hollow, and on the edge of a nasty drop. But he knows what he needs, and what Jon needs, and how to get a stubborn archivist to cave.

”This is for me, too,” he says. “Aftercare is for both of us.”

The energy melts right out of Jon. He stops trying to squirm away, though he’s still rigid as he can manage.

“Oh, I... I hadn’t thought of that.”

”Yeah, well, I need time to come down, too. And I’ll just feel like shit if I don’t make sure you’re...”

He was going to say okay, but Jon is obviously not okay. None of them are.

He won’t let Tim wash him at first, scrubs the mess from himself with rough efficiency and not an ounce of care, even for the barely-healed cut on his throat. Eventually he relents and lets Tim wash his back. They end up sitting on the shower floor, with the water running warm over them both. Jon looks like a wet rat, like a stray cat, tense and twitchy.

Tim rubs his thumbs into Jon's shoulders. He kind of wants to kiss them. He’s always been a little sappy in the cooldown, and at one time he had liked Jon.

”Did I hurt you?”

None of his bites or scratches broke skin, but there’s quite a bit only Jon could tell him.

Jon shakes his head minutely.

“How do you feel?”

”Sore,” Jon mutters. “Exhausted.”

Tim moves one hand from his back and hovers somewhere around his collar bones.

”Can I touch you in front?”

Jon leans back against him, though his hands are tense in his lap. It feels nice, Jon's back against his chest, skin to skin.

”You’ve already...”

“Just because you’re okay with it while we’re fucking doesn’t mean you’re always okay.” It occurs to Tim how little negotiating they’d done. This is not his proudest moment. He has the strangest urge to show Jon what he’s like, what he’s really like when he’s not angry and scared and exhausted and hurt.

“You _were_ okay with it, right?”

”Yeah. Only...”

He bites his lip.

”Only what?” Tim sweeps the wash rag down his arm, slow and gentle. “Tell me.”

Jon chews on it for awhile. Tim abandons pretense and strokes bare hands down Jon's arms, firm but not rough.

”...I don’t...the word you used for my, um. My chest? I don’t generally...prefer it?”

Tim tries not to be angry with himself. Now's not the time. He has to be gentle with himself, too, or risk breaking.

"What should I have said?"

"Does it matter?"

"Of course it matters."

This, too, Jon mulls over. Tim slips his hands up Jon's belly, up his chest, brushes the backs of his fingers over the soft swell there.

"I...I don't generally like to talk about it? Touching is okay."

"I’m usually better than this. Should have checked in, at least. You at least knew we could stop, right?”

Jon nods, and the weight in Tim's stomach eases a little.

”I didn’t want to stop,” he says quietly, “But I knew I could. I...I knew you would. If I asked.”

That knocks him flat. The trust.

Such naked, sincere faith.

Tim can't help it. There's something so precious here, Jon offering himself up whole and entire for Tim to peruse, that he can't help but put everything aside for just a moment and drop a soft kiss to the top of his shoulder. To his temple, into his hair. He's still so tense, like he's ready for Tim to hurt him; more than that, like he's ready to let him. Not because he doesn't trust him, but because he thinks Tim would be right. Maybe he would be. He's no longer sure, but now he's sure he wouldn't.

"This doesn't fix things," Tim murmurs into his hair. "But I think I'm ready to try, if you are."

Jon nods, opens his mouth, and Tim shushes him. Slips his arms around him.

"Talk later. Not now."

He feels the first sob before he hears it. Convulsive and so strong for a second he thinks Jon’s being sick. The next, though, sounds like it’s been ripped out of him somewhere deep and delicate.

“I miss you,” Jon whispers, choked and barely audible above the shower. “I miss you all so much.”

”I’m here.”

Later they’ll have to talk about it, boundaries and safety and where they stand. He knows Jon trusts him, and that helps, but it doesn’t make up for the months of suspicion, the _stalking_. The whole awful mess they’re trapped in. It doesn’t stop Tim being so angry he feels _sick_. But it is a start.

For now, all he can do, and all he wants to do, is hold Jon close while he cries, and kiss his temple soft and sweet, and put them both to bed.

Jon feels too light in his arms. Too small. When they first met there had been a healthy heft to him, thick forearms and a little soft pad at this belly, and thick thighs that Tim remembers wanting to leave bites all over. It’s all gone now. This Jon is angular and fragile. Brittle. How long has he been losing weight? Since Leitner? Since Prentiss? It seems just Tim wasn’t enough for the Archives; they’re _all_ losing everything. 

This Jon is easy to lift when his tears have slowed to a drip. Easy to towel down and swaddle in a sweatshirt far too big for either of them. 

He lays them both down in his bed. Jon’s unburnt hand hovers uncertainly near Tim’s skin. 

”I’m so sorry, Tim.” Jon’s voice is barely a hoarse whisper.

”I know.” It’s not enough to forgive him, but it’s a start. He scoops that hesitant hand into his, and kisses the palm. “Later.”

Jon nods. 

”Later.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "I Am Your Skin" by The Bravery


End file.
